TOP 8 Email Marketing Terms, Meanings, Facts and Bonuses You Should Know

Hope you’re doing well. I would like to introduce some terms, meanings and facts related to Email Marketing. Each and every business or just a niche has its own terms and jargon, and you should be familiar with them to feel stable and navigate easily in the world of Email Marketing. Please enjoy!

1. Blacklist: A blacklist contains a set of IP addresses that are suspected of sending out unsolicited email (spam). If your sending IP has a high complaint rate, high hard-bounce rate, or a bunch of spamtrap addresses, you are more likely to be blacklisted.Bonus: Having your IP addresses blacklisted is bad. Do everything you can to avoid it from happening.

2. Bounce: An email that is rejected by the receiving mail system is said to have bounced. An email can be returned as “bounced” for many reasons, such as having an unknown alias (username), nonexistent domain name, or full inbox. (See more in the “Hard Bounce” and “Soft Bounce” sections.Bonus: Pay particular attention to the number and rate of bounced emails, both of which could negatively affect your overall deliver-ability.

3. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003: Signed into law in December 2003 by President Bush, CAN-SPAM establishes the standards for sending commercial email in the United States.Bonus: This act is the minimum standard for sending commercial email in the United States. Most email service providers (ESPs) have much stricter requirements.4. Click-through rate: Similar to open rate, CTR can be measured different ways. The most common, however, is clicks divided by emails sent. For example, if you sent an email to 100 people and 12 of them clicked on one or more links, your click-through rate would be 12%.Bonus: Before sending out your next email marketing campaign, determine which links you want your subscribers to click. Design your creative to meet that goal.

5. Cost per thousand (CPM): Most of the major ESPs charge email marketers based on the number of emails sent per given time period (month or year). Rates are based on 1,000 emails. Typical CPM rates can range anywhere from a few cents to several dollars, based on overall volume.Bonus: When shopping around for an ESP, have a good sense of the total number of emails you plan to send per month or year. Also, ask about overage fees!

6. Deliver-ability: The number of emails that are sent minus those that bounce equals deliver ability. See more under “Inbox Deliver-ability Rate.”Bonus: Note that there is often a difference between deliver-ability and inbox deliver-ability. What matters more is the latter—the number of emails that reach the intended recipients’ inboxes.

7. Hard bounce: A hard bounce is an email that does not reach the intended recipient because of some permanent error. In server-speak, it’s defined by a 5xx error code. Hard bounces can occur when an alias (username) or domain does not exist. In most cases, emails that have hard-bounced will never be delivered.Bonus: Hard bounces are often the result of sending email to an old or purchased list. Beware: A high number of hard bounces will have a negative impact on your overall deliver-ability and domain reputation, making it harder to send emails in the future.

8. Inbox deliver-ability rate: This term refers to the proportion of emails that reach the intended recipients’ inboxes for a given email campaign. Put another way, it’s determined by emails sent minus those that bounced, dropped, lost, blocked, filtered as spam, etc.Bonus: There are many email delivery services (i.e. Atomic Email Tracker) that can help determine your inbox deliver-ability.